Page 76 of The Storyteller of Krakow

Talk. Okay. We could do that, and then I would leave.

‘All right. Talk,’ I said and went back to his leg.

‘Why are you pretending to be a man? Why?’

‘Because,’ I said, ‘I was looking for a friend, and men can go where they like. They can be loud. They can sleep where they fall. A man can walk through a camp at night, and no one asks what he is doing.’

He gasped as I bandaged his leg. So I gave him something else. ‘And because I was looking for the bear.’

‘The bear,’ he repeated. ‘I thought I had dreamt it.’

‘Wojtek is real,’ I said. ‘He belongs to us. He eats from our hands, drinks from our bottles like a drunk man, and thinks the tents are his. They even made him a soldier, papers, number, everything. It sounds ridiculous, I know. But it’s true.’

‘A bear with papers,’ he murmured. ‘It is a good story. And you dressed like a man for this bear?’

‘Yes, for the bear.’

‘It is a good story. I will keep it. One day I will tell it,’ he said.

‘It’s the truth,’ I said. ‘Not a story.’

‘Truth is a story too,’ he said, then let silence fill the room for a minute.

‘You know, in my country,’ he said slowly, ‘there was a saying. “Men go to war, women stay home and wait.” It is a stupid saying. Women do not only wait. Women endure. That is also war.’ He coughed, then continued. ‘My aunt, during the last war, when I was a child, ran the farm alone. Horses, fields, everything. Bandits came once, hungry men with guns. They thought she would cry. She took my grandfather’s rifle, stood in the doorway, and told them that the first man to step over the threshold would die. They left.’

‘Sounds like a brave woman,’ I said.

‘Yes, brave, but I called her terrifying!’ he said, then let out a half laugh.

‘It’s a good story,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep it,’ and smiled at him.

I finished with the bandages, handed him the canteen, watched as he drank, then handed him a tin of corned beef, opened it for him, and nodded for him to eat.

‘I am not so hungry,’ he said.

‘You need to.’ I nodded at the tin again.

He began to eat, reluctantly, and I started to pack my things away.

‘You have not asked me my name,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know I needed to know it,’ I replied.

‘It’s Matthias.’

‘Well, Matthias, I have to go.’ I stood and then almost tripped as he reached out and grabbed my leg.

‘Please! No. Not yet. Please, a little while longer.’

The anguish in his face I could not ignore. I could see the fear, see how sick and injured he was. It was almost like a plea from a dying man, and I had heard and seen those pleas on a daily basis. No one wants to die alone.

I sat.

‘Good. Good.’ He gave a brief smile and seemed to relax. ‘Can you tell me another story, Lena? Please? I like it when you talk. You talk of the bear, and that’s nice. Can you tell me something, anything, to take my mind away from the pain?’

Despite myself, I gave in – because why not. This in itself would make a good story to tell someday. So, I told him Zosia’s story she had told me about dancing with someone she thought was a prince, I told him about Noor, I told him more about Wojtek, I told him about Piotr, about my dream house. I told him stories until my mouth went dry.

When I stopped, I expected him to be asleep as if he were a child hearing bedtime stories, but he stared at me with a small smile. A smile that unnerved me, yet gave me a strange leap in my stomach.